Ep. 534 - Andrew Cuomo： Moral Idiot
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
179.52138
Summary
Is it still worth it to save just one life, Governor Andrew Cuomo? The new numbers expose a fundamental moral error on the left that s been around a lot longer than the coronavirus pandemic. Then, failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams begins to openly campaign to be Joe Biden s running mate. Alec Baldwin inadvertently reveals some spiritual truths about quarantine. And finally, the mailbag.
Transcript
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The U.N. is predicting 130 million people around the world might die,
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not because of coronavirus, but because of the economic shutdowns associated with coronavirus.
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Is it still all worth it to save just one life, Governor Cuomo?
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The new numbers expose a fundamental moral error on the left that's been around a lot longer than
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the virus. Then, failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams begins to openly campaign
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to be Joe Biden's running mate. Alec Baldwin inadvertently reveals some spiritual truths
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about quarantine. And finally, the mailbag. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
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If the lockdowns save just one life, then it will have all been worth it, right? That is what New
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York's governor Andy Cuomo told us in the last couple of weeks. Now CNN is picking up on a news
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story that all of us normal people figured out almost at the beginning of this pandemic, namely
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that there could be negative effects of the lockdowns themselves. CNN runs a tweet, quote,
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the world is facing multiple famines of biblical proportions in just a matter of months, the UN has
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said, warning that the coronavirus pandemic will push an additional 130 million people to the brink
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of starvation. Now that is not precise. The point is true, but that is not precise. The coronavirus is
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not going to push 130 million people to the brink of starvation because the coronavirus doesn't starve
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anybody. The economic shutdowns that were chosen by the government will possibly push 130 million people
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to the brink of starvation. Obviously we couldn't have predicted it would be 130 million or 120 million
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or 140 million, but every normal person, every non-leftist person realized at the beginning of this
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that when you shut down the global economy, there are going to be negative consequences from that.
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Okay. This is no surprise to anybody except apparently the UN and CNN. So how does this
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new number change Cuomo's calculation? If we only, if we can save even one life, then it'll all be
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worth it. Why does Andy Cuomo sound like Bernie Sanders? I don't know. They're both from New York,
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I guess. Cuomo's calculation was always extremely stupid. Okay. Cuomo's calculation. First of all,
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it's supposed that you could shut down the global economy with any, without any negative consequences.
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That's crazy. And it also supposed that the doomsday models were reliable. So when you said two to four
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million Americans could die, they just assumed, okay, that's fine. Now four million Americans are
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going to die. Okay. Yeah. You got to shut down the economy. You got to take as extreme a measure as you
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can, but what's the likelihood of that? Well, we quickly learned it wasn't that likely. It was four
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million and two million and half a million and a hundred thousand. Then now they're saying somewhere
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around 60,000, who knows between 60 and a hundred thousand, obviously much more in line with drug
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overdoses and the flu, then it would be in line with, uh, 4 million or 2 million people dying.
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Now that all of these numbers are crashing down around Cuomo, people are asking real questions.
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Namely the question that those of us who have been a little skeptical of the government here
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have been asking for weeks. What do we do if the cure is worse than the disease? And Andy Cuomo is
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having none of it. It's a very serious question, but he's having none of it because according to
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the leftists, according to people with this narrow ideology, the cure can't possibly be worse than
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the disease. And, and this is a really important point because it exposes not just Cuomo's factual
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idiocy, but his moral idiocy and a moral idiocy that is widespread on the left.
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These are regular people who are not getting a paycheck. Some of them are not getting their
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unemployment check and they're saying that they don't have time to wait for all of this
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testing and they need to get back to work in order to feed their families. Their savings
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is running out. They don't have another week. They're not getting answers. So their point is
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the cure can't be worse than the illness itself. What is your response to them? The illness is death.
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What is worse than death? Well, what if somebody commits suicide because they can't
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pay their bills? Yeah, but the illness is maybe my death as opposed to your death.
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You said, they said the cure is worse than the illness. The illness is death. How can the cure
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be worse than the illness? If the illness is potential death? So this is idiocy of the highest
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order factually and morally on the factual point. He's just wrong. The illness is not death. In fact,
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that's what we've learned more and more each day of this pandemic. If you contract coronavirus,
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the likelihood that you will die is exceedingly low, like way, way low. Like, like initially they
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told us it was three to 4%. Now they're saying it'll maybe 0.6%, maybe 0.3%, maybe 0.1%. We
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don't know. It keeps going down and down each day because it turns out more and more people are
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affected. We're getting news that, that Los Angeles had a, or California rather had a death
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from coronavirus on February 6th, which means it was here much, much earlier than anybody thought it
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was. It might be even earlier than that. And if it was earlier than that, that would explain why it's
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spread so much and why that death rate has gone down. So when he says the, the illness is death,
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that is just simply not true. But here's the moral idiocy is he says, what can be worse than
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death? There's nothing worse than death. Death is the worst thing. That's not true. There are many
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things worse than death. Like, okay. For all of the history of our civilization, we have believed that
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death is a very, very bad thing, but there are things that are worse than death. This was the thesis of
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Ronald Reagan's famous time for choosing speech. One of the most famous speeches of the 20th century.
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He said, if, if there's nothing worse than death, then should Moses have refused to lead
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the Israelites out of Egypt? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the Patriots at Concord
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Bridge have refused to fire the shot heard around the world? There are things that are worse than death.
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During the cold war, there were two sides here. There was better dead than red, right? Those who would
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rather die than live on our knees. And those who said better red than dead, they'd rather live on
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their knees than die on their feet. And Cuomo is expressing that point of view. He's, he is actually
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expressing the point of view that he would, that there is nothing worse in life than dying. Nothing
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worth standing up for. This is the height of cowardice. Now the reporter pushes him on this
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and says, well, what about some of the other externalities here? What about some of the other
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effects? He goes point by point. He says, yeah, sure. Things are bad. If you're stuck at home with an
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abusive spouse, domestic abuse is bad, but that's not worse than death. Nothing is worse than death.
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What if the economy failing? Worse than death? Is equals death because of mental illness. The
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people, the people stuck at home. No, it doesn't. It doesn't equal death. Economic hardship. Yes.
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Very bad. Not death. Emotional stress from being locked in a house. Very bad. Not death.
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Uh, um, domestic violence on the increase. Very bad. Not death. And not death of someone else.
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See, that's what we have to factor into this equation. Yeah, it's your life. Do whatever you
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want. But you're not responsible for my life. You have a responsibility to me. It's not just about you.
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You have a responsibility to me. That could be Andy Cuomo's mantra for the whole pandemic and
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certainly for his governorship. You got a responsibility to me. Forget about you. Worry
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about me. Nothing is worse than death. Could you imagine if we had an army full of Andy Cuomo's?
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We'd be dead. We'd all be dead because nobody would have any courage.
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What Andrew Cuomo is saying right here is don't ever have any courage. Don't ever risk
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your life for anything. Uh, don't consider anything greater than yourself.
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And if you do consider something greater than yourself, remember that something is me,
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me, Governor Andy Cuomo. This idea is profoundly un-Christian, profoundly un-American.
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We just celebrated Easter. Andy Cuomo pretends that he's a Catholic.
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What is the story of Easter? The story of Easter is, uh, God so loving the world that he gave his
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only begotten son to die to redeem mankind. But there's nothing worse than death. Oh, okay. All
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right. Well, fair enough then, I guess. There's no, no greater love has a man than to die for his
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friends. No, but nothing's worse than death. Of course, there are many things that are worse than
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death. We have to calculate what that is, where that line is. Are we saying that people should
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recklessly endanger their lives? No, of course not. However, are we saying that we should shut down
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the global economy if you don't have to do that, if that's going to cost more lives,
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if there's something in the calculus beyond just life? I mean, this has been the problem
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with Andy Cuomo's calculus the whole time. He says, if we can save one life, it'll all be worth it.
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You know, there are more factors here to consider than just that. It turns out that he's even
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wrong on his calculation of this many people will live and this many people will die. He got that
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completely wrong too, apparently by about 130 million. But even beyond that, there are things in life
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other than mere survival. And if Andy Cuomo understood this, then his view of the world would
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be far less perverted. He is finally asked, point blank, what if people want to work? What if people
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need to work? What if people can't feed their families? He gives the most glib, arrogant,
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They're saying that, is there a fundamental right to work if the government can't get me the money
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when I need it? Is there a fundamental right to work?
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Go take the job as an essential worker. Do it tomorrow.
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Yeah. You want to go work? That's fine. Do what I tell you to do. Can you think of a less
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essential worker than Andrew Cuomo? I can. Chris Cuomo is a lying brother over at CNN.
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But actually, I don't know. Maybe it's a competition between those two Cuomos. I used to think Chris was
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the Fredo of the family. Now I'm not so sure. What a glib answer. That's the answer of a guy who's
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never had to worry about having a job because he's worked in government his whole life. Yeah,
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you want, yeah, you want to get a job? Go become an essential worker. Well, guess what we're learning?
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We're learning that all workers are essential because the UN is saying 130 million people are
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going to starve to death because you shut down the global economy. The essential workers are still
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working, right? But it turns out everybody's essential. Cuomo apparently doesn't understand
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that. The left doesn't quite understand that. AOC, another New Yorker, does not understand that.
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The moral idiocy is not merely on questions of life and death. It gets down to work and the nature
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of man itself and leave it to AOC to get that totally wrong. We'll get that in a second. First,
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slash Michael. So Cuomo gets the life and death issue wrong. He doesn't know what life is.
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Doesn't know what the significance of death is. The left doesn't get this at all. Actually,
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Alec Baldwin, the celebrity, shows us something a little bit about this. We'll get to that in a
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moment. What AOC misunderstands is the nature of man as it relates to work. And socialists generally
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misunderstand this because they don't want to work because they're lazy bums.
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AOC has this brilliant idea with now we found out another something like 5 million people and
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another 5 million people are thrown out of work. So that brings the total up to what, 27,
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28 million people out of work in the last month. She says, well, I've got an idea when the pandemic
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lifts and you're all desperate to try to get a paycheck so you can feed yourselves and pay your
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rent. Actually, what you should do is refuse to work. There's a lot that we could be doing right
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now. But ultimately, I think when we talk about this idea of reopening society,
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only in America does the president, when the president tweets about liberation, does he mean
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go back to work? When we have this discussion about going back or reopening, I think a lot of people
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should just say, no, we're not going back to that. We're not going back to working 70 hour weeks
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just so that we could put food on the table and not even feel any sort of semblance of security in
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our lives. AOC only works a 70 hour week. What? Come on. She's like one of the top politicians in the
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country. And she thinks 70 hours is a lot. 70 hours is a lot. Think of how many people at the top of
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their fields get to only work 70 hours a week. Do you think Tim Cook at Apple only works 70 hours a
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week? No, only in government do you get to reach the, basically the pinnacle of fame and influence
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and still work 70 hours a week. Unbelievable. Beyond that, people are mocking her for this.
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Saying, oh my gosh, what a crazy, she misspoke. No, she didn't misspeak. She's been campaigning
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on keeping people out of work since the beginning of her political career two years ago.
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Don't forget the Green New Deal, her signature legislative project has a provision in it to
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just pay people from the government who are unable or unwilling to work. So you just say,
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I don't really want to work this year. And you get a paycheck under AOC's plan. And it comes down
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to this word she uses, liberate. She's mocking Trump. She says only in Trump's America, only in
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this conservative Republican hellhole, could the word liberate imply that you have to work? Because
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the left and socialists have this idea that working is somehow just a punishment. It's miserable. It's
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awful. It's something that humans shouldn't do. They shouldn't have to work. Nancy Pelosi said this.
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She said, remember during the passage of Obamacare, she said, we need to decouple health insurance from
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your employment so that people don't have to work anymore so that they can go become poets so that
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they can become writers, artists, as though work is holding mankind back. And if we can only
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stop our need to work, then we could finally flourish. But that isn't true. The only way we
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flourish is by working. Okay. In the Garden of Eden, Adam had a job to do. He had to tend the garden and
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name the animals. Certainly when they got kicked out of the Garden of Eden, God says, by the sweat
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of your brow, you shall earn your food. You work, you have to work. Now, what does that tell us? The
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fact that the most influential book on the origins of humanity begins with the issue of work.
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Every other story about humanity begins with this kind of work. What does that tell us? It tells us
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that man is made to work. And you know, you just know this intuitively. You know this right now
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because you're living it. When you're not allowed to work, when you're thrown out of your job,
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when you're, even if you do get to keep your job, when you're just told to sit at home
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and do nothing, you get depressed. You don't feel good about yourself. You don't feel satisfied or
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gratified. And when you're working and when you're working really hard, even if you're working a 70
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hour week, maybe an 80 hour week, maybe even a 90 hour week, the thing that's so weird about it is
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when you're really in it, when you're really succeeding at your job, you feel better than if
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you were on vacation at a beach. Isn't that weird? We shouldn't expect that, right? We should think
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that the best we're ever going to feel is with a pina colada sitting on the beach, but it isn't.
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You actually feel best when you're accomplishing something. Doesn't understand this. This is,
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this is part of the radical liberation that the left and the socialists have pushed for for 200 years
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now, which is we're going to, we're going to liberate ourselves so much, emancipate ourselves so much
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that we will emancipate ourselves from our own human nature, from the confines of reality, from our
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biological sex, from our need to work itself. And it drives people absolutely mad. Those are the two
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moral idiots of the democratic party right now. The two most prominent, Cuomo and AOC.
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The rest are just of the usual variety, the blathering kind. One of those happens to be
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the nominee for president, Joe Biden. AOC, for all that we knock her, she sounds like Winston
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Churchill compared to Joe Biden. Here's Joe Biden celebrating Earth Day yesterday, talking to former
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Vice President Al Gore. Remember him? Savior of the world. I don't know what Joe Biden is talking about
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here. Please take a listen and see if you can decipher it for me.
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Most Americans now get the challenge we're facing. They believe in science. The issue is important to
00:20:16.180
them and they want their leaders to act on climate, particularly young people, as you said, inspired by
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the activism of Greta and so many, so many young Americans as well who are, who are leading on
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climate. You know, JFK said, refuse, he said he refused to postpone. You know, that one line in his
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speech, we all had to learn when we were kids about going to the moon. And he talked about,
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you know, the one thing that the line that meant the most to me and he's to drive my colleagues crazy
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was his phrase, I refuse, we're doing this because we refuse to postpone.
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What we should say as a nation, I refuse to postpone. As president, I refuse to postpone
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taking immediate action. And look, I'm confident. I'm confident. Not only can we address the crisis,
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we can make most of the opportunity and create 10 million good jobs, make the U.S. the world's
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clean energy exporter and more optimistic than I have been since I've been a 29-year-old kid about
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what we can do. So I think my favorite part of this entire exchange or narrative or stream of
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consciousness is that he thinks a 29-year-old is a kid. Because to Joe Biden, a 29-year-old is a kid.
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But the rest of it's pretty crazy too. The problem that Joe has is he can't focus his thoughts anymore.
00:21:36.980
He actually did used to be able to do this, but he can't now. This is probably the number one sign
00:21:41.140
that he's slipping, which is that he begins somewhere and he just meanders and the thoughts
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go all over the place. And then by the time he ends, he's nowhere near where he began.
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So frankly, in this clip, he was better than he usually is. He's at least talking about the
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environment, but he starts to wander and he's talking about Greta and then he's talking about
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JFK and then he's talking about when he was a kid and he learned the speech and then he can't really
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remember the line from the speech. And then he says this line, we cannot postpone, which is not a line
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from the speech. JFK does talk about postponing in the speech, but that's not, first of all, it's not
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what Joe Biden said. It's not the central line of the speech. The central line of the speech is we
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will go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. That's the thrust and Biden
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doesn't get it. He just misses it a little bit again. And then he tries to dig himself out and
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he, he ends up nowhere, which is probably where he belongs. And you can see it on the face of Al
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Gore. This is everyone that talks to Joe Biden, whether it's a left-wing news broadcaster or it's
00:22:41.720
Bernie Sanders or it's Al Gore. You can see them split screen and they got their good politician face on
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and then Joe starts talking. And as they're talking, you can see the distress enter onto
00:22:52.200
their face because they think, oh my gosh, what have we done? Donald Trump is going to win another
00:22:57.580
four years. He might win another eight years if he clobbers him so badly. That's why Joe Biden needs
00:23:04.440
a strong VP. And there is someone, someone who is a failed politician, someone who has never won
00:23:13.300
anything bigger than a local state office who is ready to take the job for him. We'll get to that
00:23:20.080
in one second. First, I got to thank our friends over at Wondery. I want to let you know how much
00:23:26.260
I love crazy, weird stories about creepy hippies. You know, you already knew that. I didn't have to
00:23:34.260
tell you that. What I want to let you know about is Wondery's new show, American Scandal, where they
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dive deep into the heart of the most shocking moments of fraud and deception in American history.
00:23:44.640
And on the hippie point, one of the most fascinating stories in the American scandal season is the
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Hare Krishna murders. In this episode, they explore an Eastern religion. Let's say it's got totally pure
00:23:56.840
intentions, right? But in the hands of these crazy followers in the West, it became a criminal enterprise
00:24:02.960
of drug running, molestation, and murder. Subscribe to American Scandal and other great
00:24:08.900
Wondery podcasts right now. You can get them all over the place. You get it on Apple Podcasts,
00:24:14.040
get it on Spotify, you get it wherever you listen to podcasts. Obviously, we've all got a little bit
00:24:17.940
more time these days to be consuming great content. I absolutely love this. The whole season is fabulous,
00:24:24.740
but definitely check out those crazy Hare Krishna murders because it really, it really checks every box.
00:24:31.320
Wild, wacky politics, murder, mayhem, deception. Go check it out right now. We're going to play a
00:24:38.460
clip after the show, so stay tuned for that. Somebody is willing to take the spot as Joe Biden's
00:24:46.180
vice president. That person is not necessarily a sitting U.S. senator or sitting U.S. governor or a
00:24:53.000
former U.S. governor or a former U.S. senator or anybody who's held any office higher than a local
00:24:57.980
state rep. And that person would be Stacey Abrams. A lot of people are looking to you
00:25:04.180
as a possible vice presidential pick for Joe Biden. Now, I love it. You said you would be an
00:25:12.000
excellent running mate. It's refreshing to hear such confidence. I love it. I would be great at the
00:25:17.600
job and I want it, you said. So tell us why you would be an excellent running mate, even though it's
00:25:23.300
pretty obvious to me. Well, I appreciate that. Pretty obvious to me. How is it obvious to you,
00:25:29.660
Joy? What has she done? Her highest office she's ever had is a local state rep. Not a U.S. rep,
00:25:38.020
not a not a congressman, even like a local state rep in Georgia. There are millions of people more
00:25:44.900
qualified to be vice president than Stacey Abrams. This is just what the women of The View do is they
00:25:51.400
speak without thinking. I mean, that's sort of the definition of The View. But Joy here just likes
00:25:57.520
the idea of Stacey Abrams. For what reason? We'll get to that in a second. So she says, oh, you'd be
00:26:02.640
perfect. You'd be so qualified. I mean, it's so obvious to me. But listen, since I can't quite name
00:26:06.940
it right now, what do you think? It's like that time that Whoopi Goldberg a few weeks ago said,
00:26:10.640
I think Dr. Dr. Jill Biden should be the surgeon general. And the other woman said, what? She goes,
00:26:19.060
oh, yeah, she's an amazing doctor. She's an amazing. They said, no, actually, I Whoopi,
00:26:24.120
I think it's, I think she's a doctor of education. She's not a, she's a teacher. She's not a doctor.
00:26:29.720
Oh, oh, okay. And they just talk at it because they like the idea of these democratic politicians,
00:26:35.480
especially if they check some intersectional boxes like Joe Biden, Stacey Abrams. So they just
00:26:40.040
say things that have no connection to reality. Stacey Abrams, though, is prepared with an answer.
00:26:46.020
Tell us why you would be an excellent running, running mate, even though it's pretty obvious
00:26:50.500
to me. Well, I appreciate that. And yes, I try to be straightforward because while we hope the work
00:26:57.280
speaks for itself, sometimes the work needs a hype man. And I learned early on that if I didn't speak
00:27:03.980
for myself, I couldn't tell the story. But here's where I am. I've spent the last 25 years of my life
00:27:11.000
in service doing the work that I believe needs to be done. Is there anything more grating than when
00:27:17.120
a career politician refers to their work exclusively as service? I've, I've listened my, I'm a martyr.
00:27:24.560
I'm Mother Teresa. Basically I've served you because I went to law school and then I'm absolutely hungry
00:27:31.620
and I crave political power. And so I ran for the first office I could, and I've been paid by your
00:27:38.480
taxpayer dollars ever since to do in Stacey Abrams case, absolutely nothing. I'm just a real servant.
00:27:44.980
You know, I'm practically a missionary or a martyr. Yeah, that's me. Also, there's more evidence here
00:27:53.080
that Stacey Abrams is not qualified to run a coffee shop, much less to run as vice president of the
00:28:01.100
United States. Stacey Abrams doesn't know what a hype man is. She said, look, you hope the work speaks
00:28:05.060
for itself. In Stacey Abrams's case, it doesn't because she hasn't done anything. But she said,
00:28:09.000
but sometimes the work needs a hype man. Yeah, a hype man is someone who isn't you. The hype man is
00:28:16.680
the guy who isn't the main person who goes and chats up how wonderful the work is. But because Stacey
00:28:22.100
Abrams hasn't accomplished anything and she's just a loser, she's known nationally for having lost a race,
00:28:27.060
she's got to be her own hype man. It's very ugly. It's very off-putting. It's just a woman who
00:28:32.500
seems very prideful, boasting about things she has not accomplished and complaining about
00:28:38.760
offices that she hasn't won. So then finally, she makes the case for all that work that we need
00:28:45.280
the hype man for. What do you say to critics who say that you aren't qualified for vice president
00:28:51.160
because you've only held state office? I would say that national experience can be measured in
00:28:57.300
multiple ways. And the truth of the matter is what we want is capacity. We want competence and we want
00:29:03.480
skills. And I would challenge anyone to look at my resume and to understand that I've built three
00:29:08.260
national organizations in the last year and a half tackling the most fundamental questions in our
00:29:14.060
country. And I'm not stopping simply because there are people who dislike what I do. I'm working on it
00:29:19.820
because my responsibility is to serve the people like me, like my parents, like my cousins who are
00:29:25.260
working in chicken processing plants and who are worried about where their next paycheck comes from
00:29:29.120
and who deserve a government that can be responsive. And if I'm not willing to say that's work I can do
00:29:34.460
and back it up with a resume that shows I've done that work, then I shouldn't be in the, in the business
00:29:40.540
I'm in. Right. You shouldn't because you've proved that you can't do that work. You were a state rep for
00:29:45.480
10 years and then you tried to run for governor and you lost. That's it. There's the proof. Not even just
00:29:52.260
that you lost a race, but you didn't really do anything when you were a state rep. She's built
00:29:56.420
three national organizations over the last year. What does that mean? What are the names of the
00:30:01.040
organizations? What have those organizations accomplished? Do you know how easy it is to
00:30:04.980
write down, to start a political action committee or something or a nonprofit? And you know, you get
00:30:10.060
one donation in California and one donation in New York. You say, I've got a national organization.
00:30:14.340
Sure. It's you organized something, I guess. What does it do? What is its name? We have no idea.
00:30:19.420
Three national organizations. And we haven't heard of any of them, man, that's pretty sad.
00:30:23.320
They're tackling the most fundamental questions in the country. How, what are they doing? She
00:30:27.600
isn't doing anything. She hasn't ever done anything. The only reason that she is being considered
00:30:33.880
is because the democratic party is obsessed with sex and race. So just to begin, Joe Biden says,
00:30:42.140
I am going to pick a woman. I don't care who's most qualified. I don't, it doesn't matter to me.
00:30:47.780
I'm just going to pick a woman because that will help me pander to my base. And so they say, okay,
00:30:53.480
we're going to pick a woman. Now, many Democrats have said, it's got to be a woman of color.
00:30:57.360
So now we've got race, race added to sex here. Those are the two qualifications. And yeah, sure.
00:31:04.300
Stacey Abrams checks the intersectional boxes of victimhood. Is that going to put her in the best
00:31:10.040
position? Is that going to put the Democrats in the best position to win? You just check a couple
00:31:14.240
superficial identity boxes instead of looking at any accomplishments, which Stacey Abrams completely
00:31:19.680
lacks. There are millions of Americans more qualified than her to be Joe Biden's running
00:31:24.120
me. Okay. I don't think this is going to help them. I don't think it's going to help them because
00:31:29.720
what the Democrats are playing on here is they think that these intersectional victim identity boxes
00:31:36.700
now matters more than how you can help in the electoral college. So they think that around
00:31:44.000
the country, people are going to look and they'll say, well, Joe Biden, maybe I don't care for him
00:31:47.800
that much, but Stacey Abrams is black. So I'm going to vote for her or Stacey Abrams is a woman. So I'm
00:31:52.800
going to vote for her or whatever, whatever the, the identity group is.
00:31:57.900
Usually, historically, people have picked vice presidents to help them win a certain state.
00:32:04.980
Is Joe Biden going to win Georgia? Probably not. Probably Georgia is going to go for Trump.
00:32:10.880
Is Stacey Abrams going to help him win Georgia? Probably not. She lost the governor's race.
00:32:15.280
Now Brian Kemp is the governor. So she doesn't add anything in terms of picking up a new state.
00:32:20.760
She, they think she's, they just think people's sexual and racial solidarity is going to outweigh
00:32:28.100
the importance of winning this state or that state. I don't think there's any evidence of that. I think
00:32:32.960
they're going to regret that decision if they pick Stacey Abrams, which is why I'm now fully behind
00:32:37.680
Stacey Abrams for, for Joe's running mate. Before we get to the mailbag, I've got to thank our friends
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or something. You thought quarantine was your chance to try something new, didn't you? You thought
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Knowles. Your beard can be so much better. Go to BeardSupply.com today. You know, before we get
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to the mailbag, just one quick note from Alec Baldwin. Alec Baldwin is stuck at home. He's absolutely
00:34:00.560
losing his mind and it doesn't just show us something about the psyche of Alec Baldwin. It
00:34:05.240
shows us a spiritual reality of the lockdown. Hey, I normally probably wouldn't do this kind
00:34:12.180
of thing, but every day now that I wake up that we're out here at our house and thinking
00:34:22.560
about what's happening and what's going to happen, it gets harder. It gets a little harder
00:34:30.600
every day because I think less about myself than the people I care for. And my hair, how
00:34:41.980
my hair is looking. I can't get my hair cut anywhere. Okay. It remains as crazy, if not
00:34:49.780
crazier than that, for the whole rest of this rambling video. He goes on about a bunch of nonsense
00:34:53.640
about the economic impact of the lockdown. I don't care about any of that. I am more interested
00:34:58.500
in how completely insane Alec Baldwin looks. And if you will allow me to engage in a little
00:35:04.060
psychobabble here, I think it shows us something about the lockdowns, which is most people don't
00:35:10.380
need to be alone very much. Some people do. And you know, that's unpleasant sometimes, but
00:35:16.840
it can be very spiritually edifying. If you don't have to be alone very much, and now you
00:35:21.400
do have to be alone, that can be a scary prospect. When all the dinners go away and all going out
00:35:27.960
to the bars and all constantly doing this and that, and you're just sitting alone with
00:35:32.460
yourself, then the only person you can be with is yourself and your God also, you know, but
00:35:39.180
some people are not exactly aware of that. And they have to look at who they are, and
00:35:42.500
they have to look at what their lives are full of and what their lives mean without all the
00:35:46.000
distractions. We are so prone to being distracted, especially in this very luxurious,
00:35:52.240
prosperous culture and society that we live in. That we ignore the fundamental questions.
00:35:58.600
We ignore the fundamental facts of life. We ignore the memento mori, which the pandemic
00:36:02.800
reminds us of, that we are going to die. And all this great glitzy stuff and all the nice
00:36:07.220
jewelry and all the fancy food and drinks, it's going away. You don't get to take it with
00:36:11.820
you. That can be a wonderful thing to confront. It can make your life so much better if you confront
00:36:19.100
it. This could be a wonderful opportunity to look into that, or it can be absolutely
00:36:22.740
terrifying and you can end up with your hair standing up, like muttering to yourself, like
00:36:26.520
a crazy person, like Alec Baldwin. Those are the two options. It seems like, you know, if
00:36:31.180
you've got to turn lemons into lemonade, that would be a good way to use this pandemic is
00:36:34.900
to address the things that are beyond, not just the walls of your apartment, but the walls
00:36:40.060
of this life. All right, let's get to the mailbag. You know, obviously we appreciate
00:36:45.860
all the subscribers. Right now, if you become an Insider Plus or All Access member, you won't
00:36:50.760
just get one Leftist Tears Tumblr. You will get, are you ready for it? Are you ready?
00:36:54.480
Can you guess what you're going to get? You're going to get two Leftist Tears Tumblrs. Oh man,
00:36:59.820
what a deal. Twice as good. Head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe. We'll be right
00:37:04.400
back with the mailbag. I'm going to fly through this mailbag. I'm going to squeeze in more answers
00:37:21.160
into this seven minutes than I usually do into 15. From Eric, Mr. Knowles, I was wondering if
00:37:26.940
there was some advice you could give me. My wife has a hard time having faith in a higher power due
00:37:31.700
to an assault when she was young. I wanted to know if there's anything you might be able to
00:37:35.840
think of to help her find God's love and find her way back to religion. Very sorry to hear that that
00:37:41.360
happened to your wife. That can be a big stumbling block. We saw this in the church sex scandals,
00:37:45.840
in the Catholic church sex scandals, in the Baptist sex scandals, and in all of them. When you have your
00:37:51.180
faith shaken by an assault, whether it's a priest or a pastor or just some guy you know, that can make
00:37:57.460
you really question the world. What you've got to tell your wife, I hope this doesn't sound cold. I
00:38:03.580
think this is actually the most compassionate fact you can tell her, is that whether or not God exists
00:38:13.080
has nothing to do with our subjective feelings and experiences in the world.
00:38:21.460
That's not the question. God is not just a feeling, okay? God, if he exists, is a fact. And that fact
00:38:30.400
is objective and it's outside of us. The arguments for the existence of God are compelling and there
00:38:39.320
are many of them. You can just Google arguments for the existence of God. The Thomistic arguments are
00:38:43.680
good from St. Thomas Aquinas or from other people as well. The arguments against the existence of God
00:38:49.320
are not good. I can only think of one. The only argument against the existence of God, which
00:38:54.360
ties into your wife's experience, is suffering, senseless suffering. Why does a kid get abused?
00:39:00.800
Why does a kid get leukemia? Why do bad things happen to good people? That is one of the argument,
00:39:07.800
that there is suffering in the world. But of course, all of the great religious thinkers have had a
00:39:15.440
simple answer to this, which is that mankind has free will, that it is a fact of the world that
00:39:22.340
sin and death pervade it and the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. So now you might get to
00:39:29.920
the point where you say, okay, God exists, but he's a jerk because he's given us this world where abuse
00:39:34.480
happens. Okay. Maybe though, this actually still is the greatest possible world. Maybe the world with
00:39:44.300
incarnation and atonement, the world in which God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son
00:39:49.160
that whosoever should believe in him might not perish, but have everlasting life. Maybe that is
00:39:53.100
the greatest possible world. Maybe a world without free will where there's no sin and death would
00:39:59.480
actually be worse than a world in which there is free will. We can pursue our own desires and we can
00:40:06.780
pursue the good as we see the good and we can choose to do what we want to do is better. Even if
00:40:13.220
there's sin and death because God will redeem that world and God has redeemed that world.
00:40:20.260
There's so much more to it than that. Hopefully that will be an introduction to your wife and
00:40:24.480
wish you luck from Jeff. Hi, Michael. I'm a huge fan of your show. I'm sure you've heard of the Q
00:40:29.140
Anon movement. My question is, do you see any validity to the movement or do you dismiss it as
00:40:33.780
just another conspiracy theory? I'm not sold as to believe a certain way on it, but hoping you could
00:40:37.840
maybe shed some light on it. Thanks for any answer. And again, I love your show. I specifically
00:40:41.980
became a member just for your show. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yes, I have heard of the
00:40:46.180
Q Anon movement, but I don't know very much about it. I haven't looked into it too closely.
00:40:52.440
So I'll give my answer just on conspiracy theories in general. I don't like conspiracy theories. I
00:41:00.260
always go for the simpler explanation than the conspiracy theory explanation. The reason that
00:41:05.000
conspiracy theories catch on, however, is when there are conspiracies. And by that, I'm not talking about
00:41:10.120
any conspiracy in particular. I'm talking about when we can't trust the people who are supposed
00:41:17.180
to tell us the truth. So the media here are the big culprits. The media have lied to us time and
00:41:21.620
time again. You saw Chris Cuomo pretending to walk out of his basement for the first time in weeks,
00:41:25.980
even though we know that he got caught outside of his house and he lies right on TV, right to your
00:41:30.520
face. And so we say, well, wait a second. I can't believe those guys. There actually is some sort of a
00:41:37.980
conspiracy, right? Like there's the CNN, Chris Cuomo conspiracy. There are all these other lies
00:41:42.400
that come out and that gives more credence to conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories should
00:41:47.180
be judged on their predictive ability, right? Because the way they're usually judged is by this
00:41:53.380
2020 ex post facto explain in reverse kind of thing, like Nostradamus, you know, Nostradamus predicted
00:41:59.940
everything. No one knew that at the time, but when you look backwards, it looks like he predicted
00:42:03.760
everything. You've got to look not just to the explanatory power looking backward,
00:42:08.560
but to the predictive power looking forward. If this particular theory can predict things into
00:42:13.860
the future and you can actually say, okay, in 10 days, this is going to happen. And then it happens,
00:42:17.620
then I guess there's a reason to give some credence to it. If it can't do that, then probably it's not
00:42:23.180
worth as much as it says it is. From Chris, to the all-knowing Knowles, long-time listener,
00:42:27.920
first-time caller, I disagree that abortion is a right. However, it is currently a medical procedure
00:42:32.300
typically performed by medical professionals. If we make it illegal to get an abortion,
00:42:36.060
I'm afraid that some desperate individuals will still attempt to abort their pregnancies,
00:42:39.540
do-it-yourself style. How do we move forward in our fight to end abortion while simultaneously
00:42:43.580
removing the only option to safely perform the operation? Yeah, this is one of the lines that
00:42:49.260
the left has used forever. They've said that before Roe v. Wade, 5,000, 10,000 women a year
00:42:53.640
died from botched back alley abortions. That's not true. The guy who came up with that statistic,
00:42:59.240
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of the pro-abortion movement, founder of NARAL,
00:43:05.160
he ended up changing his views and becoming a pro-life advocate later in his life. He said that
00:43:10.260
they just made those numbers up out of whole cloth. We actually know that because we can look at the
00:43:13.620
Centers for Disease Control numbers. The year before Roe v. Wade, you had something like 35 or 39
00:43:21.480
deaths from back alley abortions. Not 39,000, not 39 million, 39 period. Do you know how many deaths
00:43:33.700
you had from legal abortions that year? 24. And when you look at which states had legal and illegal
00:43:40.100
abortion, it turns out that the likelihood of being killed by a legal abortion or an illegal abortion
00:43:44.560
was statistically almost exactly the same. That's not a real fear. Meanwhile, a million babies a year
00:43:51.680
are being killed through abortion. This is just not a difficult issue. And abortion, you say it's being
00:43:55.900
performed by medical professionals. That's true, but that is criminal. You know, medical professionals
00:44:02.760
take an oath to do no harm. And some doctors have decided to use their medical gifts to kill
00:44:11.140
people. Million, million a year. It's not a difficult issue. From Kevin, most excellent Michael
00:44:16.740
Knowles. My wife seems to be developing leftist views such as distancing herself from our Catholic
00:44:21.380
faith, pro-socialism, pro-abortion. She's also said very strange things. In a recent argument,
00:44:26.780
she started not sure if I love you, etc. Yikes. I'm interested in marriage counseling, but I'm nervous
00:44:32.160
about being outnumbered. We live in Silicon Valley. She's my high school sweetheart. We've been
00:44:35.540
together for 15 years. We're engaged for two and married for just over two now. She asked to wait
00:44:40.420
until we finish school to get married, but we've been together uninterrupted. We also chose to wait
00:44:44.840
until marriage, which I'm incredibly happy we did. Made everything incredibly special. Any insider
00:44:48.560
help? Came for Ben. Subscribe for Knowles and Clavin. Very sorry to hear that you're in this predicament.
00:44:55.220
You're absolutely right to have this fear that you're going to be outnumbered in marriage
00:44:59.640
counseling. You got to remember, I'm sure there are plenty of good marriage counselors who have all
00:45:04.980
sorts of different ideologies. But in order for marriage counseling to work, you need to all agree
00:45:12.740
on what marriage is going in. There actually has to be some guardrails and constraints around here,
00:45:17.440
because now we've redefined marriage to mean just about anything. So the Catholic view of marriage is
00:45:22.780
very different than the modern secular view of marriage. And you've got to figure out what you're
00:45:28.540
even going to try to fix. If you want to try to create or repair some modern secular marriage,
00:45:34.420
that's going to look a lot different and be a lot less satisfying than trying to repair a Catholic
00:45:40.260
marriage. Okay. The Catholic view, first of all, is you can't get divorced. There is no divorce.
00:45:46.420
A marriage can be annulled if it was illegitimate to begin with, but there's no divorce. And so the
00:45:50.900
attitude going in is going to be a lot different than the modern marriage, which is like, you know,
00:45:54.240
if you have a tiff one night, then you're going to split up. You should go to marriage counseling if
00:46:00.240
your wife will do it. That can be very helpful. I would recommend, you say you're Catholic,
00:46:05.500
probably you want to have a Catholic marriage, that you find a Catholic, faithfully Catholic
00:46:09.940
marriage counselor. Not a, you know, cafeteria Catholic marriage counselor, but someone who
00:46:14.520
actually believes in this stuff. And if your wife is unwilling to do that, then you've got to have a
00:46:18.260
conversation first about what it is you're even trying to fix. People go down bad intellectual
00:46:23.140
roads or spiritual roads or make bad decisions at some point. So, you know, it's easy for
00:46:27.980
confusion to creep in, but you first have to agree on the parameters of what it is you're trying to
00:46:34.400
fix. Only then will you be able to find a path forward and some people to help you do that and
00:46:39.280
go down, down the road of counseling and hopefully repairing your marriage. I really, I'll pray for
00:46:43.660
you and hope it works out for you. Finally, last question from Aaron. Hi, when arguing for the
00:46:48.880
second amendment as a defense against a tyrannical government, there's one argument that I have
00:46:52.840
trouble countering. The argument is since the government has presumably all of the best
00:46:56.280
weapons, including nuclear weapons, what good would any weapons such as an AR-15 do against
00:47:01.220
that kind of force? Thanks. We've been trying to occupy Afghanistan here in the United States.
00:47:10.480
We've been trying to occupy Afghanistan for 20 years and we're about to leave because we've been
00:47:18.620
mostly unsuccessful at that. As a political matter and there are military difficulties as well.
00:47:27.780
Afghanistan is smaller than Texas and the U.S. government struggles to occupy just that area.
00:47:34.880
And the Afghanis don't have AR-15s most of the time. Most of the time they've got very old,
00:47:40.880
outdated weaponry. If we were in this doomsday apocalypse scenario of a tyrannical government,
00:47:46.360
we take arms against the government. First of all, a ton of people are going to leave the
00:47:51.100
government side and go fight with the people. How many people in the military do you think are
00:47:55.800
going to stick with the government? Probably not very many. How many people in the police forces?
00:48:00.100
Probably not very many. So you've got that issue. You've got the political issue of guiding the
00:48:04.700
military because usually the problems we have waging wars in this country, they're not the military
00:48:09.620
usually. It's usually the politicians who oversee the military. And also it's a very, very big country.
00:48:17.160
That's what our politicians are finding out right now when they're trying to lock the whole thing
00:48:20.140
down and tell us what to do and imprison us in our apartments. They're finding out this is a very
00:48:24.200
big country. Americans have a strong spirit of not being told what to do. And let's hope they learn
00:48:29.960
that lesson now so they don't have to learn it later. All right, that's our show. I'm Michael Knowles.
00:48:33.500
This is The Michael Knowles Show. See you next week.
00:48:41.040
If you enjoyed this episode, and frankly, even if you didn't, don't forget to subscribe.
00:48:46.300
And if you want to help spread the word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends
00:48:50.680
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00:48:56.680
Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show,
00:49:01.340
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00:49:04.160
The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies and directed by Mike Joyner.
00:49:09.200
Executive producer, Jeremy Boren. Supervising producers, Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.
00:49:14.900
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00:49:21.440
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00:49:28.140
Ryan Love. The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2020.
00:49:34.200
You're about to hear a clip from episode one of the Hare Krishna murders on American Scandal.
00:49:39.580
But before that, make sure to subscribe to American Scandal and other great podcasts from
00:49:43.780
Wondery on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening right now.
00:49:48.960
It's a little past midnight on May 22nd, 1986. Steve Bryant walks towards his van on a quiet
00:50:08.540
residential street in West Los Angeles. With his round glasses and soft, kind eyes, Steve could be a
00:50:15.140
UCLA grad student. But the truth is, he's a college dropout. While he spent the last two years studying
00:50:21.700
and writing, it's not about anything you'd learn in school. He's been living in his van as he crisscrosses
00:50:28.140
the country, trying to get people to listen to his tale of abuse, corruption, and fraud by a worldwide
00:50:35.200
religious organization. It's an explosive story, bursting with salacious details that will blow people's
00:50:41.620
minds if they'll only believe him. And that's the problem. He's talked to reporters, written a book,
00:50:48.680
he's talked to anyone who would listen. But most people dismiss him as a nutcase. And the ones who
00:50:53.980
do believe him, insiders who saw things firsthand, are afraid to speak up. And the ones in power,
00:51:00.960
the ones who know the truth, they want to see him silenced. When he thinks about everything that's
00:51:06.400
happened, all he can do is shake his head. He was in his early 20s when he joined. He was a happy guy.
00:51:12.640
He'd finally found a community where he felt like he really belonged. Now, he's 33. Divorced. He's lost
00:51:19.960
custody of his kids. So many battles, and all of them lost. A couple of weeks ago, he finally admitted
00:51:26.940
defeat. The bad guys have won. Now it's time to just let go of the anger and let go of the hurt
00:51:32.900
and move on. Tomorrow, he'll head up to the bucolic town of Mount Shasta, California, where he has a lead
00:51:39.560
on a job customizing vans. He wants to start over, have a normal life. Tonight was a good night spent
00:51:47.760
with old friends. He didn't have to convince them of anything. They know he's telling the truth.
00:51:52.060
Their conversation was about the future and new beginnings. The message was clear. Move on,
00:51:58.400
Steve. Let it go and live your life. But he knows he's in danger. That's why he refused his friend's
00:52:05.300
invitation to spend the night at their apartment. The last thing he wants to do is draw them into
00:52:10.060
this mess. He'll park a few blocks away and spend the night in his van. He crawls into the back, lays on
00:52:16.960
his home-built bed, and wraps himself in a blanket. It's after midnight, and he's exhausted.
00:52:22.060
But his mind keeps racing. He closes his eyes, willing sleep to come. But sleep is not cooperating.
00:52:29.400
He throws off the blanket, crawls into the driver's seat, and rolls a joint, chanting softly as he
00:52:34.960
rolls, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna. Hare Krishna devotees like Steve aren't supposed to do
00:52:43.220
drugs. They aren't supposed to do a lot of things, but some of them do. Some of them do terrible things.
00:52:49.360
And if you speak up and challenge their authority, he shakes his head. Let it go, Steve. You're moving
00:52:56.020
on. New beginnings. As he fires up the joint, there's a tap on his window. He turns and recognizes
00:53:04.460
the face in the shadows immediately. It's not someone he wants to see. Tierta, or Thomas Drescher.
00:53:11.560
Tierta lives in West Virginia, so he should not be here. Not in L.A., and certainly not standing next
00:53:18.000
to Steve's van late at night. Maybe it's Steve's mind, playing tricks. He blinks to see if Tierta will
00:53:24.900
disappear. But when he opens his eyes, Tierta's still there, staring at him. Steve keeps chanting,
00:53:31.660
Hare Rama, Hare Rama. Does he still believe in Krishna? After so many years of disappointment,
00:53:40.000
after losing his wife, losing his children, his innocence, part of him still does. And all of him
00:53:46.860
needs Lord Krishna's protection right now. Hare Hare. Tierta raises his hand. It's holding a 45.
00:53:58.480
To listen to the rest of Episode 1 of the Hare Krishna Murders on American Scandal,
00:54:05.660
click the link in the show description, or subscribe to American Scandal and other great
00:54:10.080
podcasts from Wondery on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening now.